Prue Leith wants to ban school packed lunches?

[SneakyGremlins]

Good luck with that.

www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/amp/47733670

A lot of private schools do so already.

But surely it wouldn't be enforceable in a state school?

What about picky eaters?

🙄

DS is at a private school. Lunch is included and only 1 option although all dietary requirements eg vegetarian, gluten free are catered for.
He’s a very picky eater. I just let him get on with it. Sometimes he eats it all, sometimes he only eats veg/ rice/ potatoes/ bread roll/ pudding. I make sure he has a good breakfast, snack and tea. He seems to be surviving and he’s doing well at school.

Our school is going to ban them in the future it’ll be a rolling start so for all new starters they’ll know that’s the plan. If they really want packed lunches they have to choose a different school.

I think it's a good idea although probably not possible to enforce. My DC get free KS1 meals at the moment but I will pay when they are older. I think it's a really good idea to have hot food in the middle of the day and it means that their evening meal can be lighter if they are tired or busy later

Then they need to be free then. My kids had packed lunches because (at the time) it was £1.65 per child per day and we couldn't afford that.

Maybe she should focus on improving the quality of school lunches so that children actually want them and make them affordable for people on a low income.

She's an over-privileged, deluded gobshite who lives on Cloud Cuckoo land. I can buy days worth of packup for one child for the price I'd spend on just one school dinner for all three of them, which is £7.50. So she can shove what she wants up her arse and take that gobshite Jamie Oliver with her.

Can't click on the link. What is she suggesting replacing them with? My ds is in reception so getting free school dinners but when I have my 2 dc to pay for it will be £6.50 a day, they will be having packed lunches then because I can make them a really nice lunch much cheaper than that.

But that's the thing. My friend sends her kids with packed lunches because bread and cheese for a week is about £3. Paying for school meals isn't currently doable.

£1.90 for a crappy dinner here- the highlight of the week is somewhere between the frozen pizza or the 'chicken fajita' (two chicken nuggets in a dry wrap).

Prue can jog on.

www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/amp/47733670

Hopefully clicky - she says there should be ONE choice at lunch time and every child should have it.

My ds is autistic and has a very limited. He would starve if this was enforced. He can get free school meals as we are in Scotland and he is in P2 but I have to send a packed lunch. It’s a ridiculous idea that not all parents can afford or use.

Hope that never happens. School meals are so overpriced. When I was at school (early 2000s) they used to charge £4 per day per child, can't imagine what it would be now. My mum sent me with packed lunches which I think must have cost less than £4 for the whole week

Also the school dinners were rank

Will need to extend the lunch hour.
Extend the dining hall.
Buy new kitchen equipment/seating/tables/plates etc...

And who's going to be footing the bill for that? We do packed lunches because it's cheaper than paying for the school meal that our picky eater son wouldn't eat. £2.30 a day soon adds up

He goes to school with a sandwich, piece of fruit, yogurt and mini cheddars most days. He then has a hot dinner at home after school.

The school meals need to be significantly better then! I'm in a secondary school and the quality of the meals is getting worse rather than better. There are often filling meals available, but the veg is overboiled carrots and peas, that's it, no variety ever. They used to do salad when they had lasagne, but it wasn't popular so they stopped. They have found that hot dogs or chicken nuggets are popular, so they're on the menu regularly, and pizza is available every day.

There are always sandwiches, but every single one of them is mostly mayonnaise with a tiny sliver of anything nutritious.

Dd's packed lunches may be boring, but they're cheaper and healthier than the offerings from the school. She has a ham sandwich, a yoghurt, a carton of fruit juice and some carrot sticks. She's a very picky eater, so if that's what she'll eat, that's what I'll send her with.

What a stupid idea. £2.05 per lunch here. My kids would go on packed lunch every day if I let them, they say school food is awful, meat is fatty and cutlery usually not clean. I've been in and they're right

So she doesn't want the staff to have a lunch hour either, but eat with the dc so they don't really get a break all day. It's one of those silly, Ill thought out statements that sound worthy until you speak to an actual teacher or parent. Ban fizzy drinks, ban crisps, ban chocolate, ban sweets, but don't tar all parents with the same brush. I doubt this would even make a difference to obesity levels tbh, the kids with parents who couldn't give a shit would just give them extra crap at the end of the day and it's only 5 meals a week.

Absolutely ridiculous in every respect. How in heaven's name does one option cater for every dietary need? A bowl of boiled rice? Let alone kids with sensory issues. Smh do these people live in the real world?

Yes no doubt there are still kids who are taking lunches that the school dinner gestapo say are unhealthy but doing a blanket thou shall only eat this is going to lead to bigger problems for all.

Packed lunches are banned in my country and in DD's school (and many others) there are no options at lunch, everyone gets the same thing, allergies and special diets aside, and they all eat it (and puddings only on special occasions like pancake day). DD is fussy at home but she eats everything at school even when she doesn't like it.
But lunch is free for everyone - this should only happen if it's free for everyone.

Not a great plan, though I do see that lots of packed lunches are full of crap. Unfortunately, lots of schools don’t have kitchens or the facilities these days.